Cole's New Room

The last night in his peach room.

It only took two weeks to finally gut his room and really jump into this project.

Everyone painted.

Oma just wanted to say, "enough already and lets get this done please".

We worked hard teaching the kids the whole process of painting a room.
Sure takes longer but well worth the work.

Cole's room for two nights!

He enjoyed being out in the living room, as he was able to create very large forts using his mattress and blankets, couches and chairs.

Only two nights displaced and he is back to his room.

Just a plain white.  However when he turns the lights out at night the ceiling and walls glow with splattering of glow in the dark paint.  Cool right?!  Room of stars sort of.

New dresser to get him out of the bookshelf as he is really quite a pig about putting his cloths away.

Maybe "pig" is unfair.  He is just always in such a hurry to grab cloths and go play or throwing his clean cloths on the shelf so he can hurry and go play.  So the shelf was never organized, most of the cloths were in a sort of ramp from the floor up to the second shelf as cloths kept falling from his "grab and go" technique.  On the other hand, pig is a good word.

The kids built most of this again with instructional help of course.  Working together as a team, learning how to use tools and how to read crappy instructions which looked more like "hey, this is what it's going to look like".

 

Each day this week we put more of his room back together, doors, shelving and decorations.  Slow and steady it goes to try and make a home for everything.

This is his Harry Potter side of the room.  We are also going to find a small shelf for the Wands Grandpa Dave made for him.  He will still be able to play with them but they will have a "home".  (or are we creating more opportunity to get upset with him for not putting things way?  Your not suppose to answer that.)

 

Star Wars side of the room.

As he does not wear the Star Wars helmets too often (I don't think they are comfortable to play in) we used them as decorations as well.

Lovin this part of the room!

We have more to do and other fun ideas that will just take time.  But he is enjoying his room having a great time so far.  Oh, so am I!

East Came West

Trish and Mandy came for a visit so we spent the day walking the campus, eating food and catching a movie.

Mandy is more than half done with her first year in college and doing great!  Mandy was about the twins age when they moved to the East Coast, sure hard to believe it's been that long or gone by that quickly.  It does seem like just yesterday... All my troubles seemed so far away, Now it looks as though they're here to stay, Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Oh, sorry...

The MATT basketball stadium doors were open so we decided to walk inside until some one told us to get out.  (no one kicked us out though)

What a huge building!

Inside is impressive.  All the lights were on, flashing and zooming around, the Duck Men were practicing.

 

The wood floor is just beautiful in person!

(Mandy, Jo & Cole are sitting floor side across from us.  See em?)

Trish and I enjoyed this:

We almost walked around the whole building, looking and reading as we went.  So much too see!

I climbed to the very top seat to snap this shot.

Very steep!  Similar to the PIT but I seem to have more leg room!
Thank you Phil for that!!

We headed out to wonder around campus and the kids must have been tired.

Or mistook Mandy for a play gym.

A little Campus Geocaching.

We found two, rather Mandy found two!

Sushi, yummm!

A whirl wind trip for these two but they managed to see a ton of family and friends.  We had lots of laughs!

LOVE YOU TWO!

Family Fun!

Pink Drinks

The kids have been helping in the kitchen more often and really enjoying it.  Jo is starting to read recipes and wanting to try new fun things that she comes across.

The pink drink was way yummy!  The recipe called for: sugar this and sugar that, sprinkled with a little more of that sugar love!

Jo came to me with a warm drink recipe that she read about thinking it might make Cole feel better as he is sick today.  Warm water, lemon juice and a little honey.  Yeah!  She is thinking of others, or should I say she is thinking about Cole and his well being. Yeah!

BCS DUCKS!

We even had a Beaver fan dressed in Duck colors!

Oma, Cindy, Friend of Dawn, Dawn, Noah and Cole.

(Jo was doing anything but watching the game and took in a movie toward the end in our room)

New Hair Cuts

Could I please have one photo of you two smiling ... smiling at the same time?  Please?  PLEASE?!  Ok, whatever!

I didn't get the shot I was thinking of but these make me smile.  Love digital cameras, just keep clicking, just keep clicking.

Jo finished putting together her Bird House from Christmas.

Paint will come next and then we will find a home for it outside.

Homework.

Directions can be misleading at times. Oma and I found this funny. 

After some good laughs they worked the problem again.

(If you can't see the image, double click the image to make it larger.)

Just a little family time.

Piano Woman JO!

I'd say we waited for over three months of piano lessons with Jo to see if she really liked playing before we started shopping for a piano.  We did wait to buy one but I started shopping after the first lesson.

Meet Chris and Jonathan.

You don't know them from Adam and we didn't either.  We not only bought the piano from them but they helped us move it too!  We also don't think we have seen the last of these two as we really enjoyed visiting with them.  Oh, and Jonathan plays beautifully!

(Oma and I are truly enjoying listening to Jo put music into our home.)

Jo sits for the first time.

She has chosen to sit at the piano much more often than she ever did her electric keyboard. 

Jo Plays.

Jo was not too happy with this video after she saw it due to the fact she can play this song better than in this video.  But it's a stepping process, and as one of her Mom's, I'm choosing to share this stage in her playing with all of you.

(If you do not see the video through your email, click on the link and actually go to our blog to view it.)

2010 Wrap Up!

 Both kids still believe and were excited to see Santa at the mall this year.

They came out of their rooms dressed in their best to see him too!

Our snow = rain.

Doesn't stop the kids from getting outside to enjoy a Christmas present or two.

HELEN!

A few old (crap, that could almost be literal now) co-workers/friends met up for dinner to see and visit with Helen. (center)  Helen is the reason Cole & Jo call Jill "Oma" as it means Mom in Korean.

Tom, Tina, Brian, Erica, Jo, Cole and Helen.

We LOVE Helen and were sure glad to see her along with catching up with all of them.

New Year South

As we drove to our southern New Years destination we stopped off at Gma Marie's and Gpa Norman's for lunch and a finial farewell as they have now flown South for the rest of winter.  It was good to see them once again and Pete's Drive-in food is always yummy!

The rest of the drive we snaked through the back roads to do a little Geocaching with Oma as she LOVES this activity.

This one was at a fire station.  The treasure was inside the toy fire truck.

The guard rail and bridge caches are usually not hard to find but this one could have been fatal!

Jo was able to locate and grab the cache with ease.  Cole on the other hand fell off the edge while putting it back but Oma was right there to grab an arm and stop his decent.  (it was really only 5' or so off the ground so we all got a good laugh)

Cole joined the club!

That would be the "I've touched an electric fence and it hurt" club.

Looking back this might not have been a good day for Cole to get out of the car while we cached!  No one said that their was an electric fence near this cache but  the Little Man reached out and touched the wire. ZAP!

We didn't have to amputate and he too was able to laugh about it later that day.

  

Walking the Dogs

We arrived in time to take the dogs for their usual walk

Connie, Jo, Rachelle, Cole, Tye and Dasher.

Then headed in to play some games!

Pictionary is a hard game to play PG while having a few drinks and playing with people you have known for over twenty years.  We have lots of information about each other that could have been drawn for clues.  But we managed to keep it PG...well all but the word "vibrate". (I'm not talking about it any more) The kids had a really good time playing this game.

What did you do at 10pm New Years Eve?

We went sledding! (top photo: Jo, bottom photo: Cole)

It started to snow so we all grabbed appropriate gear including flashlights and headed to the front yard to sled!  Janis pulled her truck around too for some extra lights on the hill.  This was GREAT!

11:55pm!

I think their faces say it all, don't you?

But I'll tell you any way.

Oma: Do I really need to stay up for midnight, really?

Jo: No, I'm not tired, I can stay awake. (was asleep a min after the picture)

Cole: I'm fine, I'm having fun Mom.

Our Smoke and Toast of 2010!

Sheri, Rachelle, Tina, Connie and Janis.

Welcome 2011!

We rang you in just right, again.
(I should add: Rang the New Year in BETTER as I smoked a smaller cigar this year and made it all night without praying to the porcelain god.)